15 November 2004

Cut costs at IT giants' expense, not students

Green Tertiary Education and IT Spokesperson Nandor Tanczos is hailing Victoria University's move to open source servers and suggests that Waikato University look at following suit.

Both varsities have announced today that they need to reduce costs, but while Vic is achieving this by moving its admin, finance and HR systems to servers running the open source software 'Red Hat Linux', Waikato is instead looking at reducing staff numbers by doing some jobs less often and reviewing student-staff ratios.

"Congratulations to Victoria for choosing to balance their budget by reducing how much money they give to multinational corporations; Waikato should follow their example instead of compromising the quality of their students' education," said Nandor, who is a Waikato graduate and lives in Hamilton.

"Waikato prides itself for being a hot bed of innovation, but this time Victoria are the ones using their imagination and lateral thinking to look at the overall picture.

"Tertiary institutions nationwide should take note of Victoria's move. Open source is a cheaper option all round and the education sector making greater use of it would benefit institutions, their students and the local software industry."

ENDS

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